Constantly Risking Absurdity with doctorofphysick
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1doctorofphysick
Hello poetry enthusiasts! My name is Nick, and I too am enthused. I was invited to lead you on a bit of a poetic journey, and though I don't really have a theme, I'd say that the poems I've selected are often a little eccentric, iconoclastic, and modern. I wanted to start with what it means to me to be a poet. I plan to post 1 poem every Friday going forward. I have about 10 poems banked, including one of my own, which I'll squirrel in at some point. I'll do a bit of analysis to start, and I'll try to participate in responses, though it may take me a while. Thank you for the opportunity, and your patience!
When I was thinking of a title for this thread, I was reminded of this poem by the Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti: "Constantly Risking Absurdity." Here, in fragmentally formatted free verse, Ferlinghetti compares the poet to a high wire acrobat. He performs his art simultaneously as a grave matter of life and death, and something that must be taken lightly, even cast as frivolous. The formatting makes me think of two trapeze artists swinging in to meet one another.
(Despite my efforts, it appears that I'm unable to format the lines in this forum. Instead I'll provide this link to the Poetry Foundation which has the intended formatting: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52319/constantly-risking-absurdity-15 )
I always return to the title, which I think describes being a poet well: we're always one step away from seeming absolutely ridiculous. Half the battle is maintaining a consistency and sobriety, enough for us to remain credible. The second line "and death" could be seen as an attempt to lend gravity to this struggle or as an affectionate joke. Certainly, to give yourself fully to poetry means to sacrifice material gain and much of your energy and time to reflection and composition. But the specter of death could instead be one of creative failure or a bankruptcy of ethics. What I like about the tone here is that while the stakes are high, Ferlinghetti makes the process sound fun and thrilling.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti founded one of my favorite bookstores, City Lights in North Beach, San Francisco. Upstairs there's a room dedicated to poetry and many of the volumes I own are from there. I make a pilgrimage every year to look for new books, followed by bomb Sicilian food.
Constantly Risking Absurdity (#15)
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti 1958 (1919-2021, American)
Constantly risking absurdity
and death
whenever he performs
above the heads
of his audience
the poet like an acrobat
climbs on rime
to a high wire of his own making
and balancing on eyebeams
above a sea of faces
paces his way
to the other side of day
performing entrechats
and sleight-of-foot tricks
and other high theatrics
and all without mistaking
any thing
for what it may not be
For he's the super realist
who must perforce perceive
taut truth
before the taking of each stance or step
in his supposed advance
toward that still higher perch
where Beauty stands and waits
with gravity
to start her death-defying leap
And he
a little charleychaplin man
who may or may not catch
her fair eternal form
spreadeagled in the empty air
of existence
A Coney Island of the Mind
When I was thinking of a title for this thread, I was reminded of this poem by the Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti: "Constantly Risking Absurdity." Here, in fragmentally formatted free verse, Ferlinghetti compares the poet to a high wire acrobat. He performs his art simultaneously as a grave matter of life and death, and something that must be taken lightly, even cast as frivolous. The formatting makes me think of two trapeze artists swinging in to meet one another.
(Despite my efforts, it appears that I'm unable to format the lines in this forum. Instead I'll provide this link to the Poetry Foundation which has the intended formatting: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52319/constantly-risking-absurdity-15 )
I always return to the title, which I think describes being a poet well: we're always one step away from seeming absolutely ridiculous. Half the battle is maintaining a consistency and sobriety, enough for us to remain credible. The second line "and death" could be seen as an attempt to lend gravity to this struggle or as an affectionate joke. Certainly, to give yourself fully to poetry means to sacrifice material gain and much of your energy and time to reflection and composition. But the specter of death could instead be one of creative failure or a bankruptcy of ethics. What I like about the tone here is that while the stakes are high, Ferlinghetti makes the process sound fun and thrilling.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti founded one of my favorite bookstores, City Lights in North Beach, San Francisco. Upstairs there's a room dedicated to poetry and many of the volumes I own are from there. I make a pilgrimage every year to look for new books, followed by bomb Sicilian food.
Constantly Risking Absurdity (#15)
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti 1958 (1919-2021, American)
Constantly risking absurdity
and death
whenever he performs
above the heads
of his audience
the poet like an acrobat
climbs on rime
to a high wire of his own making
and balancing on eyebeams
above a sea of faces
paces his way
to the other side of day
performing entrechats
and sleight-of-foot tricks
and other high theatrics
and all without mistaking
any thing
for what it may not be
For he's the super realist
who must perforce perceive
taut truth
before the taking of each stance or step
in his supposed advance
toward that still higher perch
where Beauty stands and waits
with gravity
to start her death-defying leap
And he
a little charleychaplin man
who may or may not catch
her fair eternal form
spreadeagled in the empty air
of existence
A Coney Island of the Mind
2DebiCates
>1 doctorofphysick: Hello Nick! I'm so glad you took up this project and what a perfect title based on your stated intentions. I will be among the sea of faces for this journey.
This is only my second Ferlinghetti. (What have I been doing with my life?!) The first was I Am Waiting https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42869/i-am-waiting-56d22183d718a where I was introduced to his slight of "foot" magic (ha! clever that), a poem which seemed to me to embody the American spirit. Alternating with the American dispirit.
Here we see more of his struggle as a poet, for that hyper-focused "taut truth" that a great definition of poetry itself. It is a perfect metaphor, that of the high wire acrobat during a public performance, risking death after thousands of private hours of honing. Nor never forgetting that it is done on the razor's edge of absurdity. Who cares about poetry any more? Since 1958, it's grown to be more and more absurd, wouldn't you say? Yet, the breath-taking beauty of it is in the succeeding! Working with gravity, performing high theatrics, the poet sways against the winds of plebian capitalism and the NeverEnding battle of The Nothing of nihilism.
Do you find bits of self-deprecating humor here? I had to look up "entrechats" and it struck me as humorous (I've been ruined by a childhood of Bugs Bunny). There's the evoking of the comedic artistry (looks easy, but it's not) of "charleychaplin," too. I also delighted in his using homophones like "rime" and "eyebeam." Have I missed others?
I'm glad you included the link so we could see the poems swinging/swaying format. I've also struggled with formatting poems in LT (not LT's fault, it's a web thing) which ignores double spaces and double blank lines unless you are willing to repeat a zillion codes for "non-breaking space", a lot of work: https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+this+%26nbsp&newwindow=1&sca_esv... ).
I will be thinking about this in my reading of poetry going forward:
and all without mistaking
any thing
for what it may not be
How lucky you are to make an annual visit to City Lights. A whole ROOM dedicated to poetry books. What fantastical magic is that? Do you also ever daydream of owning a bookstore? (Almost as financially lucrative as being a professional poet, I would guess.)
THANK YOU, Nick. This first installment comes when the Saturday Poetry Collective poem looks like it will have to be a Moderator's Choice on Sunday. So, that's perfect timing for this first journey with you. ♥️
P.S. I look forward to the titillating promise of the later inclusion of a Nick original!
This is only my second Ferlinghetti. (What have I been doing with my life?!) The first was I Am Waiting https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42869/i-am-waiting-56d22183d718a where I was introduced to his slight of "foot" magic (ha! clever that), a poem which seemed to me to embody the American spirit. Alternating with the American dispirit.
Here we see more of his struggle as a poet, for that hyper-focused "taut truth" that a great definition of poetry itself. It is a perfect metaphor, that of the high wire acrobat during a public performance, risking death after thousands of private hours of honing. Nor never forgetting that it is done on the razor's edge of absurdity. Who cares about poetry any more? Since 1958, it's grown to be more and more absurd, wouldn't you say? Yet, the breath-taking beauty of it is in the succeeding! Working with gravity, performing high theatrics, the poet sways against the winds of plebian capitalism and the NeverEnding battle of The Nothing of nihilism.
Do you find bits of self-deprecating humor here? I had to look up "entrechats" and it struck me as humorous (I've been ruined by a childhood of Bugs Bunny). There's the evoking of the comedic artistry (looks easy, but it's not) of "charleychaplin," too. I also delighted in his using homophones like "rime" and "eyebeam." Have I missed others?
I'm glad you included the link so we could see the poems swinging/swaying format. I've also struggled with formatting poems in LT (not LT's fault, it's a web thing) which ignores double spaces and double blank lines unless you are willing to repeat a zillion codes for "non-breaking space", a lot of work: https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+this+%26nbsp&newwindow=1&sca_esv... ).
I will be thinking about this in my reading of poetry going forward:
and all without mistaking
any thing
for what it may not be
How lucky you are to make an annual visit to City Lights. A whole ROOM dedicated to poetry books. What fantastical magic is that? Do you also ever daydream of owning a bookstore? (Almost as financially lucrative as being a professional poet, I would guess.)
THANK YOU, Nick. This first installment comes when the Saturday Poetry Collective poem looks like it will have to be a Moderator's Choice on Sunday. So, that's perfect timing for this first journey with you. ♥️
P.S. I look forward to the titillating promise of the later inclusion of a Nick original!
3DebiCates
>1 doctorofphysick: Two more tidbits just came to me...
I like your analogy of the structure of the poem as being two trapeze artists swinging to meet one another (like the poet and the reader).
I thought of an anachronistic reference: the 2008 award-winning documentary The Man on Wire. I would like to watch it again, but simply remembering it makes my knees start to shake.
I like your analogy of the structure of the poem as being two trapeze artists swinging to meet one another (like the poet and the reader).
I thought of an anachronistic reference: the 2008 award-winning documentary The Man on Wire. I would like to watch it again, but simply remembering it makes my knees start to shake.
4doctorofphysick
>3 DebiCates: Thanks for your many insightful comments, Debi! I agree that humor winks subtly throughout this piece, and Bugs Bunny in a tutu doing balletic leaps is a perfect visualization. There's a cartoony quality to several of the images, like the poet walking on the stalks of the spectators 'eyebeams.' It had never occurred to me before, but maybe Ferlinghetti was creating a metaphor here for how the artist depends on the rapt attention of his or her public in order to avoid the plunge. There's nothing more satisfying than finding success in a poem's completion. Bringing in Charlie Chaplin's little tramp as a placeholder casts the poet as an underdog, stumbling through pratfalls and hard luck, but also with dignity, tenacity and good humor. I love that he condenses the comedian's name into a lower case single word, turning him into an adjective.
I'm glad you highlighted "and all without mistaking/any thing/for what it may not be" One of the more profound aspects of this poem for me is Ferlinghetti's appeal to reason in defining what a poet does: the "Super Realist" has to grapple with what is true before he can beautify it for the world. That he must perceive "taut truth before the taking of each stance or step" really succinctly illustrates the writing process for me. Sometimes composition feels like crossing a mine field, and each gesture has to be considered against an array of complicating factors. While other Beat poets (and their descendants) were experimenting with freer modes of expression like automatic writing and cut-up/collage, Ferlinghetti was older and still very much the modernist. I like the careful way he builds up his stanzas through repetition - I Am Waiting is a great example. I love the whole collection (A Coney Island of the Mind).
It's likely that I'll have need of that HTML formatting information in the future. Thanks for the tip! I'm happy to supplement the submission schedule, and I hope that more users will find the thread.
I'm glad you highlighted "and all without mistaking/any thing/for what it may not be" One of the more profound aspects of this poem for me is Ferlinghetti's appeal to reason in defining what a poet does: the "Super Realist" has to grapple with what is true before he can beautify it for the world. That he must perceive "taut truth before the taking of each stance or step" really succinctly illustrates the writing process for me. Sometimes composition feels like crossing a mine field, and each gesture has to be considered against an array of complicating factors. While other Beat poets (and their descendants) were experimenting with freer modes of expression like automatic writing and cut-up/collage, Ferlinghetti was older and still very much the modernist. I like the careful way he builds up his stanzas through repetition - I Am Waiting is a great example. I love the whole collection (A Coney Island of the Mind).
It's likely that I'll have need of that HTML formatting information in the future. Thanks for the tip! I'm happy to supplement the submission schedule, and I hope that more users will find the thread.
5doctorofphysick
>2 DebiCates: I'm a grad student in library science, and I work in libraries, so the dream is wrapped up a bit more in the lending and preserving of books than in selling them. I definitively can't imagine living too far from a great independent bookstore, though!
6DebiCates
>5 doctorofphysick: Oh! Do you feel a comradeship with Philip Larkin, perhaps? (I like collecting what poets do other than poeting. Some continue well after their poetry makes a living, albeit however humble.)
I absolutely loved your reply about how you relate so much to this poem. It added to my enjoyable experience of it. And with your recommendation of the whole of Coney Island, I am certain now I must get my hands on a copy.
ETA: I live miles and miles and miles (I'm in Texas) from an independent bookstore. I do, though, buy new always from independent booksellers online. For used, I buy from Better World Books (they must think I buy for a used bookstore I go so crazy there). I'm a Never Amazonian.
I absolutely loved your reply about how you relate so much to this poem. It added to my enjoyable experience of it. And with your recommendation of the whole of Coney Island, I am certain now I must get my hands on a copy.
ETA: I live miles and miles and miles (I'm in Texas) from an independent bookstore. I do, though, buy new always from independent booksellers online. For used, I buy from Better World Books (they must think I buy for a used bookstore I go so crazy there). I'm a Never Amazonian.
7doctorofphysick
Love Song (Liebes-Lied)
by Rainer Maria Rilke 1907 (1875-1926)
translated by Walter Arndt
How am I to contain my spirit lest
It touch on yours? How lift it through a space
Higher than you to things environing?
Oh, I should gladly lay it by to rest
In darkness with some long-forgotten thing
At some outlandish unresounding place
Which won't re-echo your deep echoing.
But all that touches you and me comes so,
It takes us jointly like a stroking bow
That draws one voice from two strings by its tilt.
Upon what instrument then are we strung?
And by what hands of what musician wrung?
Ah, sweet the lilt.
The Best of Rilke
I came to Rilke while studying Ancient Greek literature in college. Some of his work shares a sensibility with classical poetic forms, in this case the ode. But as a literary modernist, he was less concerned about rhyme and meter, and more interested in a spiritual connection with his antecedents.
I love Rilke's soulfulness, and I think here it's reflected strongly in his imagery. The negative space above (higher than you...) and below (some outlandish unresounding place) create a contrast to the inevitable strength of the speaker's love. And he brings that into perspective with perhaps my favorite musical metaphor in poetry: the two strings that play simultaneously under love's influence. *chef's kiss*
by Rainer Maria Rilke 1907 (1875-1926)
translated by Walter Arndt
How am I to contain my spirit lest
It touch on yours? How lift it through a space
Higher than you to things environing?
Oh, I should gladly lay it by to rest
In darkness with some long-forgotten thing
At some outlandish unresounding place
Which won't re-echo your deep echoing.
But all that touches you and me comes so,
It takes us jointly like a stroking bow
That draws one voice from two strings by its tilt.
Upon what instrument then are we strung?
And by what hands of what musician wrung?
Ah, sweet the lilt.
The Best of Rilke
I came to Rilke while studying Ancient Greek literature in college. Some of his work shares a sensibility with classical poetic forms, in this case the ode. But as a literary modernist, he was less concerned about rhyme and meter, and more interested in a spiritual connection with his antecedents.
I love Rilke's soulfulness, and I think here it's reflected strongly in his imagery. The negative space above (higher than you...) and below (some outlandish unresounding place) create a contrast to the inevitable strength of the speaker's love. And he brings that into perspective with perhaps my favorite musical metaphor in poetry: the two strings that play simultaneously under love's influence. *chef's kiss*
8TonjaE
It's a beautiful piece. Thank you for sharing. Do you ever wonder about the translation of poetry?
I know this poet was not much concerned about rhyme but just as an example:
English > German
strung > bespannt
wrung > ausgewrungen
Borrowing the rhyme from this poem translated to English, the German words for these obviously don't rhyme. I don't understand much German but if comparing just two words from the poem changes it like this, how much is lost or altered in the whole piece?
It's something I've been thinking about lately, and I'd be interested to know what you think.
I know this poet was not much concerned about rhyme but just as an example:
English > German
strung > bespannt
wrung > ausgewrungen
Borrowing the rhyme from this poem translated to English, the German words for these obviously don't rhyme. I don't understand much German but if comparing just two words from the poem changes it like this, how much is lost or altered in the whole piece?
It's something I've been thinking about lately, and I'd be interested to know what you think.
9doctorofphysick
>8 TonjaE: Translation is a wild and slippery thing. When I was looking for a date for this collection, I found several alternate translations for this poem. I was really surprised by how divergent they were to the version I’ve always loved, which was from this one collection translated by Arndt that I’ve had for years.
Here’s those lines from a translation by Stephen Mitchell:
Upon what instrument are we two spanned?
And what musician holds us in his hand?
This one was uncredited:
Where is the instrument whence the sounds flow?
And whose the master-hand that holds the bow?
I’m not a reader of German, so I can’t speak to how writers in the language deal with end rhyme. It seems like words become more compound as they gain complexity, which might make rhyming difficult. What the various translations seem to imply is that translators feel the need to make these crucial lines rhyme, in keeping with the tone and heritage of the love poems Rilke is paying homage to.
I’d love any insights into poetic form in original German! I never made it over the alps from Italian (language).
Here’s those lines from a translation by Stephen Mitchell:
Upon what instrument are we two spanned?
And what musician holds us in his hand?
This one was uncredited:
Where is the instrument whence the sounds flow?
And whose the master-hand that holds the bow?
I’m not a reader of German, so I can’t speak to how writers in the language deal with end rhyme. It seems like words become more compound as they gain complexity, which might make rhyming difficult. What the various translations seem to imply is that translators feel the need to make these crucial lines rhyme, in keeping with the tone and heritage of the love poems Rilke is paying homage to.
I’d love any insights into poetic form in original German! I never made it over the alps from Italian (language).
10DebiCates
>7 doctorofphysick: Thank you, Nick, for another whistle stop on this risky journey.
I spent an hour down a rabbit hole of finding various translations of this poem. It was quite the startling exercise, pointing out so clearly the creative challenge of translating that @TonjaE noted above.
It's interesting to me too that while the translated version you included didn't get me vibes vibrating, I did begin to enjoy it more and more as I read several other translations. I love how you admitted to best loving the translation you encountered first. It reminds me how I feel attached to the exact edition of books I read, in particular the attachment to the covers of those editions I read from.
I know of a couple of German native speakers on Goodreads. Sadly GR discontinued DMs so it's harder now to reach out to them to ask if they have any insights into the German poetic form. I'll have to post a message on one of their reviews--not the most polite thing--but they are GR friends and I bet they won't mind. I'll let you know if they can point us io a good direction for information...in English. I'm curious too.
I spent an hour down a rabbit hole of finding various translations of this poem. It was quite the startling exercise, pointing out so clearly the creative challenge of translating that @TonjaE noted above.
It's interesting to me too that while the translated version you included didn't get me vibes vibrating, I did begin to enjoy it more and more as I read several other translations. I love how you admitted to best loving the translation you encountered first. It reminds me how I feel attached to the exact edition of books I read, in particular the attachment to the covers of those editions I read from.
I know of a couple of German native speakers on Goodreads. Sadly GR discontinued DMs so it's harder now to reach out to them to ask if they have any insights into the German poetic form. I'll have to post a message on one of their reviews--not the most polite thing--but they are GR friends and I bet they won't mind. I'll let you know if they can point us io a good direction for information...in English. I'm curious too.
11doctorofphysick
>10 DebiCates: Thanks Debi! I can't say I'd given translations of poetry this much thought before. Language, both formal and idiomatic, and its influence on style are so vital to understanding poets. It makes sense that meaning can easily change in translation. I'd be happy to hear from insider perspectives, if it isn't a faux pas! I have a Russian poem in the hopper for later down the line, and I think I'll do some comparison shopping for alternate translations, especially since i don't own a physical volume for it.
As for Philip Larkin, I've read very little of him. It was actually a librarian I work with who gushed about him and I think he showed me a couple poems a few years ago. I looked up his bio on Wikipedia, and I'm impressed by how quickly he rose in the profession from a young age. It was a different library world back then, and in England (it seemed like even colleges just had a single master librarian). Is there a poem of his that you like especially?
As for Philip Larkin, I've read very little of him. It was actually a librarian I work with who gushed about him and I think he showed me a couple poems a few years ago. I looked up his bio on Wikipedia, and I'm impressed by how quickly he rose in the profession from a young age. It was a different library world back then, and in England (it seemed like even colleges just had a single master librarian). Is there a poem of his that you like especially?
12doctorofphysick
Happy Friday folks, I hope your weeks were fruitful. This is a poem about the weekend, by a poet I happened to meet once upon a time at the Lunch Poems series at UC Berkeley's Morrison Library. We had a mutual acquaintance who gave me this volume and suggested I say hello at the reading.
The poet, Indigo Moor, was at the time using his free verse to explore and interrogate his ancestors' history in the state of Mississippi, as well as his own perceptions of Southern African American culture. His first book, Tap-Root, explores these themes from several angles; I will say I like the section informed by jazz and blues music the best. Like Moor, I've experimented with incorporating jazz subjects and structural ideas into my poetry. I appreciate how visceral and sensory his imagery is.
Nomads
by Indigo Moor 2006
For six days we purify metal,
sleepwalking through sulfur clouds.
A few pennies forged with every muscled
clang of pig iron and rust. Friday's
whistle, our Pavlovian call to bedlam,
triggers us down to dogs.
Come Saturday, we hang our checks
on new shoes, silk ties, gold chains.
Scrub iron ore from our fingers,
coke dust from faces before slow fading
from day to night. A bottle of gin
passes between us. We stiff-leg and
hip-drop a pimp down the boulevard;
tug our hats down until our faces
are curved horizons with brown, felt
suns rising askew. Walking the bricks,
we crave music worth killing for:
manna soaked in bourbon, grilled
over hot Mississippi coals.
The Easy Lion Jazz Joint exhales
an intoxicating vibration
of wood-stomp and tremor-slide.
Bass so cold it shatters hot breath.
The sax man's vibrato wrenches
moans from our bodies,
sways us into fevered cattails
wrapped in sweat and silk.
Spit-shined leather begins to fly.
Two more juke joints before sunrise.
A plate of ribs and a whiskey sour.
Sunday morning is a hangover
hard as an I-beam stove into our heads.
All too soon, the factory whistle.
Taproot
The poet, Indigo Moor, was at the time using his free verse to explore and interrogate his ancestors' history in the state of Mississippi, as well as his own perceptions of Southern African American culture. His first book, Tap-Root, explores these themes from several angles; I will say I like the section informed by jazz and blues music the best. Like Moor, I've experimented with incorporating jazz subjects and structural ideas into my poetry. I appreciate how visceral and sensory his imagery is.
Nomads
by Indigo Moor 2006
For six days we purify metal,
sleepwalking through sulfur clouds.
A few pennies forged with every muscled
clang of pig iron and rust. Friday's
whistle, our Pavlovian call to bedlam,
triggers us down to dogs.
Come Saturday, we hang our checks
on new shoes, silk ties, gold chains.
Scrub iron ore from our fingers,
coke dust from faces before slow fading
from day to night. A bottle of gin
passes between us. We stiff-leg and
hip-drop a pimp down the boulevard;
tug our hats down until our faces
are curved horizons with brown, felt
suns rising askew. Walking the bricks,
we crave music worth killing for:
manna soaked in bourbon, grilled
over hot Mississippi coals.
The Easy Lion Jazz Joint exhales
an intoxicating vibration
of wood-stomp and tremor-slide.
Bass so cold it shatters hot breath.
The sax man's vibrato wrenches
moans from our bodies,
sways us into fevered cattails
wrapped in sweat and silk.
Spit-shined leather begins to fly.
Two more juke joints before sunrise.
A plate of ribs and a whiskey sour.
Sunday morning is a hangover
hard as an I-beam stove into our heads.
All too soon, the factory whistle.
Taproot
13doctorofphysick
I'm a bit late today because of a quest I've been on to find special cheeses for a party at the library where I work. Cheese in hand, I hope to lead you further down this garden path.
This one comes from the Soviet poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, one of the unfortunate casualties of Stalin's purges. His work has a lot of the zeal associated with political fervor following the October Revolution in 1917, but this particular favorite of mine has the strange ability to stand outside of history as a statement of human-sized truths. Perhaps it's because he wrote it the year before the U.S.S.R. came to be.
It's not often that a great poet has a laugh at the expense of his own ego. He recognizes his grandiosity is doing him a disservice in pursuit of love (or maybe something more essential, like a place in the world), but he can't seem to help himself. There's humor, in his satire of great authors' love lives, but an undergirding sadness.
I'll admit that this poem always spoke to me without my ever having completely digested its meaning. It's the sort of artwork that has a rumble seat, or a side car for the reader to slide into and cling onto for dear life, whipping around corners where the artist leads.
I'll note, I've long lost the reader that I first read this in, so I found it online. I'll try to find a proper book for the touchstone, but I can't guarantee that it's the same translation. This translation is the one I recognized, though I found an alternate which is perhaps truer to the original Russian. You can read it here: https://max.mmlc.northwestern.edu/mdenner/Demo/texts/beloved_self.html I'd be happy if any translation aficionados come upon another one.
To His Own Beloved Self, The Author Dedicates These Lines
by Vladimir Mayakovsky 1916
translated by Max Hayward and George Reavey
Six.
Ponderous. The chimes of a clock.
“Render unto Caesar ... render unto God...”
But where’s
someone like me to dock?
Where’11 I find a lair?
Were I
like the ocean of oceans little,
on the tiptoes of waves I’d rise,
I’d strain, a tide, to caress the moon.
Where to find someone to love
of my size,
the sky too small for her to fit in?
Were I poor
as a multimillionaire,
it’d still be tough.
What’s money for the soul? –
thief insatiable.
The gold
of all the Californias isn’t enough
for my desires’ riotous horde.
I wish I were tongue-tied,
like Dante or Petrarch,
able to fire a woman’s heart,
reduce it to ashes with verse-filled pages!
My words
and my love
form a triumphal arch:
through it, in all their splendour,
leaving no trace, will pass
the inamoratas of all the ages!
Were I
as quiet as thunder,
how I’d wail and whine!
One groan of mine
would start the world’s crumbling cloister shivering.
And if
I’d end up by roaring
with all of its power of lungs and more –
the comets, distressed, would wring their hands
and from the sky’s roof
leap in a fever.
If I were dim as the sun,
night I’d drill
with the rays of my eyes,
and also
all by my lonesome,
radiant self
build up the earth’s shriveled bosom.
On I’ll pass,
dragging my huge love behind me.
On what
feverish night, deliria-ridden,
by what Goliaths was I begot –
I, so big
and by no one needed?
Vladimir Mayakovsky
This one comes from the Soviet poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, one of the unfortunate casualties of Stalin's purges. His work has a lot of the zeal associated with political fervor following the October Revolution in 1917, but this particular favorite of mine has the strange ability to stand outside of history as a statement of human-sized truths. Perhaps it's because he wrote it the year before the U.S.S.R. came to be.
It's not often that a great poet has a laugh at the expense of his own ego. He recognizes his grandiosity is doing him a disservice in pursuit of love (or maybe something more essential, like a place in the world), but he can't seem to help himself. There's humor, in his satire of great authors' love lives, but an undergirding sadness.
I'll admit that this poem always spoke to me without my ever having completely digested its meaning. It's the sort of artwork that has a rumble seat, or a side car for the reader to slide into and cling onto for dear life, whipping around corners where the artist leads.
I'll note, I've long lost the reader that I first read this in, so I found it online. I'll try to find a proper book for the touchstone, but I can't guarantee that it's the same translation. This translation is the one I recognized, though I found an alternate which is perhaps truer to the original Russian. You can read it here: https://max.mmlc.northwestern.edu/mdenner/Demo/texts/beloved_self.html I'd be happy if any translation aficionados come upon another one.
To His Own Beloved Self, The Author Dedicates These Lines
by Vladimir Mayakovsky 1916
translated by Max Hayward and George Reavey
Six.
Ponderous. The chimes of a clock.
“Render unto Caesar ... render unto God...”
But where’s
someone like me to dock?
Where’11 I find a lair?
Were I
like the ocean of oceans little,
on the tiptoes of waves I’d rise,
I’d strain, a tide, to caress the moon.
Where to find someone to love
of my size,
the sky too small for her to fit in?
Were I poor
as a multimillionaire,
it’d still be tough.
What’s money for the soul? –
thief insatiable.
The gold
of all the Californias isn’t enough
for my desires’ riotous horde.
I wish I were tongue-tied,
like Dante or Petrarch,
able to fire a woman’s heart,
reduce it to ashes with verse-filled pages!
My words
and my love
form a triumphal arch:
through it, in all their splendour,
leaving no trace, will pass
the inamoratas of all the ages!
Were I
as quiet as thunder,
how I’d wail and whine!
One groan of mine
would start the world’s crumbling cloister shivering.
And if
I’d end up by roaring
with all of its power of lungs and more –
the comets, distressed, would wring their hands
and from the sky’s roof
leap in a fever.
If I were dim as the sun,
night I’d drill
with the rays of my eyes,
and also
all by my lonesome,
radiant self
build up the earth’s shriveled bosom.
On I’ll pass,
dragging my huge love behind me.
On what
feverish night, deliria-ridden,
by what Goliaths was I begot –
I, so big
and by no one needed?
Vladimir Mayakovsky
14DebiCates
>12 doctorofphysick: I just listened on Youtube to Indigo Moor recite a couple of his poems. I was sorry not to find him reading this exact poem, but the two I listened to gave me a sense of how I might hear his poetry.
I love the title. It's a thing I enjoy, when even the small space reverently reserved for title is used sometimes by poets (and novelists, too) to inform. I love that sense of discovery.
This poem constellates into it and around it two other works for me. Mississippi God Damn by Song by Nina Simone. She would have caught with the nuance of the phrase, "grilled over Mississippi coals." She also wrote "Ain’t Got No, I Got Life" where she often riffed it with different lyrics in live performances, so she would have recognized this snazzy, jazzy, dizzy Saturday night. The other work that came to my mind was the experimental novel/poetry Cane by Jean Toomer. Like Moor, he was caught in that terrible whirlwind of the intersection of old south and new north (or California in the case of Moor). "Nomads" indeed.
I'm sorry I'm a week late to this Friday's edition of the journey of Constantly Risking Absurdity. What a lovely thing though that it was here still waiting to take me along. Thank you, Nick.
I love the title. It's a thing I enjoy, when even the small space reverently reserved for title is used sometimes by poets (and novelists, too) to inform. I love that sense of discovery.
This poem constellates into it and around it two other works for me. Mississippi God Damn by Song by Nina Simone. She would have caught with the nuance of the phrase, "grilled over Mississippi coals." She also wrote "Ain’t Got No, I Got Life" where she often riffed it with different lyrics in live performances, so she would have recognized this snazzy, jazzy, dizzy Saturday night. The other work that came to my mind was the experimental novel/poetry Cane by Jean Toomer. Like Moor, he was caught in that terrible whirlwind of the intersection of old south and new north (or California in the case of Moor). "Nomads" indeed.
I'm sorry I'm a week late to this Friday's edition of the journey of Constantly Risking Absurdity. What a lovely thing though that it was here still waiting to take me along. Thank you, Nick.
15DebiCates
>13 doctorofphysick: I'm a bit late today because of a quest I've been on to find special cheeses for a party at the library where I work. Cheese in hand, I hope to lead you further down this garden path.
That library is an absolute slave driver! Cheese-hunting sounds dangerous.
I'll admit that this poem always spoke to me without my ever having completely digested its meaning. It's the sort of artwork that has a rumble seat, or a side car for the reader to slide into and cling onto for dear life, whipping around corners where the artist leads.
What a description! Makes me more mighty curious about your own poems and how richly descriptive they must be.
What a poem right from the beginning. The novel title instantly had me hooked. On the one hand this reads like the ramblings of an egomaniac, a narcissist extraordinaire. But no, he is spoofing on himself. I suppose at some low point we might all have felt that way--why doesn't the world know how wonderful I am?! Why doesn't it, or anyone, love me? He's taken that feeling and made it, like you say, a ride in a rumble seat, with the poet as a driver who has finally let loose. Eff the speed limit, eff gravity, eff laws of physics! At the end, he'll just drag his unelected love and magnificence, rejected by the swine of the world. So there.
Of course, he says it infinitely better than I just did. ha ha
This line
"I’d strain, a tide, to caress the moon."
reminded me of the opening story in Italo Calvino's 1965 Cosmicomics, have you read it? It's a cycle of wild and surreal short stories about dawn of the universe. The first story takes place when the moon was closer to the earth. At high tide the moon is so close one could jump up on to it and scoop up some of its creamy manna. The collection is 12 chapters, each takes up a recently discovered scientific fact and gives it the undefinable Calvino treatment.
FYI, we'll be reading that collection in a group read in April on It's a GoodThing Group Read. It was selected by me :) https://www.librarything.com/topic/375895#
That library is an absolute slave driver! Cheese-hunting sounds dangerous.
I'll admit that this poem always spoke to me without my ever having completely digested its meaning. It's the sort of artwork that has a rumble seat, or a side car for the reader to slide into and cling onto for dear life, whipping around corners where the artist leads.
What a description! Makes me more mighty curious about your own poems and how richly descriptive they must be.
What a poem right from the beginning. The novel title instantly had me hooked. On the one hand this reads like the ramblings of an egomaniac, a narcissist extraordinaire. But no, he is spoofing on himself. I suppose at some low point we might all have felt that way--why doesn't the world know how wonderful I am?! Why doesn't it, or anyone, love me? He's taken that feeling and made it, like you say, a ride in a rumble seat, with the poet as a driver who has finally let loose. Eff the speed limit, eff gravity, eff laws of physics! At the end, he'll just drag his unelected love and magnificence, rejected by the swine of the world. So there.
Of course, he says it infinitely better than I just did. ha ha
This line
"I’d strain, a tide, to caress the moon."
reminded me of the opening story in Italo Calvino's 1965 Cosmicomics, have you read it? It's a cycle of wild and surreal short stories about dawn of the universe. The first story takes place when the moon was closer to the earth. At high tide the moon is so close one could jump up on to it and scoop up some of its creamy manna. The collection is 12 chapters, each takes up a recently discovered scientific fact and gives it the undefinable Calvino treatment.
FYI, we'll be reading that collection in a group read in April on It's a GoodThing Group Read. It was selected by me :) https://www.librarything.com/topic/375895#
16doctorofphysick
>15 DebiCates: For whatever reason, I never got around to reading Cosmicomics. Invisible Cities made a profound impression on me in high school, and I think I read ...If on a Winter's Night a Traveler a bit later on. Someone gave me the Baron in the Trees as a gift a couple years ago, and it was fun to reenter Calvino's idiosyncratic headspace on an 18th century Candide-esque allegorical adventure. I'd happily add Cosmicomics to my to-read list, and I'll check out that group read page.
When it comes to Mayakovsky, I have a soft spot for bluster and hyperbole I suppose. My favorite stanza is the one concerning money, with its modest anti-capital digs. "What's money for the soul? -/Thief insatiable." invites all sorts of interpretations. It might sound cynical to declare the human soul a thief, but the way that it hangs off the previous clause suggests a sort of affectionate chiding. I imagine Mayakovsky smiling at that point while reading it. As a Californian, I like that in his reference to the spoils of the Gold Rush he makes the state plural, like the Carolinas or the Indies (east or west). California metastasizes from a geographical point into an imposingly vast territory of the imagination, tinged with some of the ignorance and wonder of the Age of Exploration.
Your Nina Simone parallel is a good one. She acted as a conduit between worlds: between North and South, but also between genres and their attendant cultures; the folk revival, the Western classical tradition, jazz and soul. Indigo has some of that same mutability; I remember enjoying seeing him read.
I'm glad I've drummed up some interest for my original work, because that's what I'm planning to post this Friday. Thanks for your analysis!
When it comes to Mayakovsky, I have a soft spot for bluster and hyperbole I suppose. My favorite stanza is the one concerning money, with its modest anti-capital digs. "What's money for the soul? -/Thief insatiable." invites all sorts of interpretations. It might sound cynical to declare the human soul a thief, but the way that it hangs off the previous clause suggests a sort of affectionate chiding. I imagine Mayakovsky smiling at that point while reading it. As a Californian, I like that in his reference to the spoils of the Gold Rush he makes the state plural, like the Carolinas or the Indies (east or west). California metastasizes from a geographical point into an imposingly vast territory of the imagination, tinged with some of the ignorance and wonder of the Age of Exploration.
Your Nina Simone parallel is a good one. She acted as a conduit between worlds: between North and South, but also between genres and their attendant cultures; the folk revival, the Western classical tradition, jazz and soul. Indigo has some of that same mutability; I remember enjoying seeing him read.
I'm glad I've drummed up some interest for my original work, because that's what I'm planning to post this Friday. Thanks for your analysis!
17DebiCates
>16 doctorofphysick: I'm glad I've drummed up some interest for my original work, because that's what I'm planning to post this Friday.
I'm greatly looking forward to that!
I'm greatly looking forward to that!
18doctorofphysick
This week I'll be sharing a poem of my own. I decided to dig for something fundamental to my own personal journey, and this is an old one. I was an 18 year old jazz trombonist, and I had only started writing poetry a year earlier.
I wanted to use language and imagery to try to capture what it felt like to perform on stage, as well as channeling the experience of the listener. I remember writing this as a single block of text, and then formatted it in almost the way you see it now. Lines were staggered and blocked differently, but I didn't want to try to code all of that. I think the spacing, capitalization, and breaks work well enough.
This was published in the 2007 River of Words Arts & Literature contest, in which I was one of 9 finalists. It's an international youth arts conference that I believe still continues to this day, run by St. Mary's College in Moraga, California. Robert Hass, ex-US poet laureate whose work I shared previously, acted as editor and contributed to the founding of the contest. It was how I first came in contact with him.
I had a particular song in mind when I wrote Layer Cake, and It's called "Boo-Wah" by jazz trio The Bad Plus. If you'd like to listen along, you can find it on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/SdrPcTrb2z8?si=jzZ-uk4RrpwSvg9N I actually got to present the poem to the band later that year when they played Yoshi's jazz club in Oakland, CA. I ran into Ethan Iverson, the piano player, at the Ben and Jerry's across the street before the show and handed him the packet. The band all read it backstage and came and gave me a hug after the curtain. A life highlight!
Layer Cake
By Nick Boykin 2007 (1989-)
Dying stars of colored light burn,
The pupils go cat-like; the retinas sizzle
This colored fire plays tricks – transforms a
dull article of metallic construction
into a hallucination
A thousand tiny, focused suns break dams
of perspiration,
of concentration,
of fatigue
The crowd is eclipsed; it no longer exists.
BOO-WAH says the drum, without warning
Space.
Repetition.
The theme is uttered.
Theme
that substance, that essence of anything,
that application to the outer context.
Ivory dances with substance,
then falls off keyboard’s edge,
into a 32nd note pattern,
A brief swing interim.
A momentary aside of deposed coolness
precedes an EXPLOSION
of panic and stabbing concentration.
Cymbals shine, toms crash, framework
dissolves, the Parthenon caves in.
Rhythmic debris flies from the platform.
A maniacal left hand climbs upward,
threatening the sweet melody of the right,
Fingers dance with blinding speed
From high to low frets
Piano-demon is harnessed –
Tranquility is restored.
Theme.
A trance is sculpted and nurtured between
calloused fingers and strings,
between psyches and physical
forms of the crowd,
between hammer and mutating
mirror of the bass drum surface.
Repetition lulls the transitory senses,
while awakening others,
the more profound,
the more secretive ones.
Now, despite the pot and tobacco
smoke-veiled mystery,
All can begin to comprehend
exactly what is taking place.
Bass takes a solo.
The line jogs and then staggers,
down the neck,
falling near the last fret.
Provocative smackings give the strings
a reverberation of funk,
then fall into a groove repeated four-fold;
The trance deepens.
Knuckles whiten as the house piano
is slammed out of tune.
Flimsy wooder hammers strain,
crack under the blows.
Two reverberating epicenters of concentration
trade fours for an eternity,
building a layer cake of licks in
the ever-deepening dream pot.
All melts away as percussion chambers take
the colored spotlight.
Swirling about a countenance of the highest,
most rapt level of intention and intensity
sweat takes on a new light, a colored light;
drops of molten emerald, pyrite,
rose quartz, agate
fall to the snare and vaporize into a million
kaleidoscopic particles
at the report of the clever stick.
A forest canopy of cymbals,
some bell shaped,
some flat,
some full of tiny drill holes;
others with gaping ones,
some as small as a fist,
others with the wingspan
of a California Condor,
dance epileptically in the colored light,
tip to and fro,
shake as though possessed
by some cherub of light.
BOO-WAH says the drum.
Repetition.
The trance recedes.
Boo-wah says the drum,
the cymbal crash lingers,
Boo-wah says the drum, softer, lighter,
boo-wah says the drum, hardly impregnating
The smoky silence,
boo-wah says the drum,
ringing, the cymbal is clenched.
I wanted to use language and imagery to try to capture what it felt like to perform on stage, as well as channeling the experience of the listener. I remember writing this as a single block of text, and then formatted it in almost the way you see it now. Lines were staggered and blocked differently, but I didn't want to try to code all of that. I think the spacing, capitalization, and breaks work well enough.
This was published in the 2007 River of Words Arts & Literature contest, in which I was one of 9 finalists. It's an international youth arts conference that I believe still continues to this day, run by St. Mary's College in Moraga, California. Robert Hass, ex-US poet laureate whose work I shared previously, acted as editor and contributed to the founding of the contest. It was how I first came in contact with him.
I had a particular song in mind when I wrote Layer Cake, and It's called "Boo-Wah" by jazz trio The Bad Plus. If you'd like to listen along, you can find it on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/SdrPcTrb2z8?si=jzZ-uk4RrpwSvg9N I actually got to present the poem to the band later that year when they played Yoshi's jazz club in Oakland, CA. I ran into Ethan Iverson, the piano player, at the Ben and Jerry's across the street before the show and handed him the packet. The band all read it backstage and came and gave me a hug after the curtain. A life highlight!
Layer Cake
By Nick Boykin 2007 (1989-)
Dying stars of colored light burn,
The pupils go cat-like; the retinas sizzle
This colored fire plays tricks – transforms a
dull article of metallic construction
into a hallucination
A thousand tiny, focused suns break dams
of perspiration,
of concentration,
of fatigue
The crowd is eclipsed; it no longer exists.
BOO-WAH says the drum, without warning
Space.
Repetition.
The theme is uttered.
Theme
that substance, that essence of anything,
that application to the outer context.
Ivory dances with substance,
then falls off keyboard’s edge,
into a 32nd note pattern,
A brief swing interim.
A momentary aside of deposed coolness
precedes an EXPLOSION
of panic and stabbing concentration.
Cymbals shine, toms crash, framework
dissolves, the Parthenon caves in.
Rhythmic debris flies from the platform.
A maniacal left hand climbs upward,
threatening the sweet melody of the right,
Fingers dance with blinding speed
From high to low frets
Piano-demon is harnessed –
Tranquility is restored.
Theme.
A trance is sculpted and nurtured between
calloused fingers and strings,
between psyches and physical
forms of the crowd,
between hammer and mutating
mirror of the bass drum surface.
Repetition lulls the transitory senses,
while awakening others,
the more profound,
the more secretive ones.
Now, despite the pot and tobacco
smoke-veiled mystery,
All can begin to comprehend
exactly what is taking place.
Bass takes a solo.
The line jogs and then staggers,
down the neck,
falling near the last fret.
Provocative smackings give the strings
a reverberation of funk,
then fall into a groove repeated four-fold;
The trance deepens.
Knuckles whiten as the house piano
is slammed out of tune.
Flimsy wooder hammers strain,
crack under the blows.
Two reverberating epicenters of concentration
trade fours for an eternity,
building a layer cake of licks in
the ever-deepening dream pot.
All melts away as percussion chambers take
the colored spotlight.
Swirling about a countenance of the highest,
most rapt level of intention and intensity
sweat takes on a new light, a colored light;
drops of molten emerald, pyrite,
rose quartz, agate
fall to the snare and vaporize into a million
kaleidoscopic particles
at the report of the clever stick.
A forest canopy of cymbals,
some bell shaped,
some flat,
some full of tiny drill holes;
others with gaping ones,
some as small as a fist,
others with the wingspan
of a California Condor,
dance epileptically in the colored light,
tip to and fro,
shake as though possessed
by some cherub of light.
BOO-WAH says the drum.
Repetition.
The trance recedes.
Boo-wah says the drum,
the cymbal crash lingers,
Boo-wah says the drum, softer, lighter,
boo-wah says the drum, hardly impregnating
The smoky silence,
boo-wah says the drum,
ringing, the cymbal is clenched.
19DebiCates
>18 doctorofphysick: Holy Crap!
That was an EXPERIENCE. I listened as I read, the two keeping almost perfect time. (I'm sure I could eventually read it *in time* upon multiple listens--to the music and the poem.)
I know nothing about jazz. But after reading your poem, I feel like I got a visceral primer. I could smell pot. Beer. Sweat. Feel the vibration of the piano in my chest. I'm astounded at how much you conveyed and I felt guided by. Writing about music--nearly impossible like "dancing for architecture," a line I read somewhere once and it stuck with me because it is so true--yet you've done it. Line after line after line, you did it and carried me, a music idiot, perfectly.
Really spectacular, Nick. No wonder you garnered a hug from The Bad Plus. Best poetry trophy ever.
Some favorite lines, plucked to send you admiring love:
The pupils go cat-like; the retinas sizzle
Ivory dances with substance,
then falls off keyboard’s edge,
precedes an EXPLOSION
of panic and stabbing concentration.
Rhythmic debris flies from the platform
A forest canopy of cymbals,
some bell shaped,
some flat,
some full of tiny drill holes;
others with gaping ones,
some as small as a fist,
others with the wingspan
of a California Condor,
(And that last line...so perfect, so immediate, the dumbfounded silence)
ringing, the cymbal is clenched.
That was an EXPERIENCE. I listened as I read, the two keeping almost perfect time. (I'm sure I could eventually read it *in time* upon multiple listens--to the music and the poem.)
I know nothing about jazz. But after reading your poem, I feel like I got a visceral primer. I could smell pot. Beer. Sweat. Feel the vibration of the piano in my chest. I'm astounded at how much you conveyed and I felt guided by. Writing about music--nearly impossible like "dancing for architecture," a line I read somewhere once and it stuck with me because it is so true--yet you've done it. Line after line after line, you did it and carried me, a music idiot, perfectly.
Really spectacular, Nick. No wonder you garnered a hug from The Bad Plus. Best poetry trophy ever.
Some favorite lines, plucked to send you admiring love:
The pupils go cat-like; the retinas sizzle
Ivory dances with substance,
then falls off keyboard’s edge,
precedes an EXPLOSION
of panic and stabbing concentration.
Rhythmic debris flies from the platform
A forest canopy of cymbals,
some bell shaped,
some flat,
some full of tiny drill holes;
others with gaping ones,
some as small as a fist,
others with the wingspan
of a California Condor,
(And that last line...so perfect, so immediate, the dumbfounded silence)
ringing, the cymbal is clenched.
20DebiCates
>18 doctorofphysick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiQvcr3yUzA&t=365s
WHA?!!!!!
I feel like I just this minute discovered jazz. At 66 years old.
Here/hear: https://youtu.be/wiQvcr3yUzA?si=B3yMdvY_vrA2ehYV&t=920 I have never in my life heard a saxophone sound like that before.
Good gravy, your poem means even more now, a gateway drug. Hope you'll share more of your work, Nick.
WHA?!!!!!
I feel like I just this minute discovered jazz. At 66 years old.
Here/hear: https://youtu.be/wiQvcr3yUzA?si=B3yMdvY_vrA2ehYV&t=920 I have never in my life heard a saxophone sound like that before.
Good gravy, your poem means even more now, a gateway drug. Hope you'll share more of your work, Nick.
21doctorofphysick
>20 DebiCates: holy crap indeed! Thanks so much for your response - I'm glad my poem took you there, and that it achieved its goal. It's very much an outlier in my work, but I'll do some soul (and catalog) searching for other selections.
The Bad Plus has, historically, been a gateway drug for several people I know when it comes to jazz. I hadn't heard the new configuration since the piano player left the band, so thanks for sharing! I love KEXP - they now have an affiliate station here in the Bay Area. The most potent tracks with crossover appeal (by the Bad Plus) are definitely their reinterpretations of popular rock and roll songs, including covers of Nirvana, Blondie and the Pixies. My favorite is their David Bowie cover: https://youtu.be/Cz09i4EOjtE?si=qJM9WHpp6wjIzfoX
The Bad Plus has, historically, been a gateway drug for several people I know when it comes to jazz. I hadn't heard the new configuration since the piano player left the band, so thanks for sharing! I love KEXP - they now have an affiliate station here in the Bay Area. The most potent tracks with crossover appeal (by the Bad Plus) are definitely their reinterpretations of popular rock and roll songs, including covers of Nirvana, Blondie and the Pixies. My favorite is their David Bowie cover: https://youtu.be/Cz09i4EOjtE?si=qJM9WHpp6wjIzfoX
22DebiCates
>21 doctorofphysick: Isn't it great to have these conversations that launched from a poem? I'm thinking about April's upcoming National Poetry Month celebration and conversation topics I could suggest for the group. Any ideas on a conversation starter about poetry and music? They are two sides of the same coin in many ways. Or at least are in the same mint facility in our brains. :)
23doctorofphysick
I think there's no better way to describe and contemplate the natural world than with poetic form. I've found that, though I've lived in the city my entire adult life, my youth in a rural area has deeply colored what speaks to me most in art: the kind that plunges roots into the earth and finds nourishment and insight that way.
I didn't know much about this poet when I first selected him; I found him in an anthology which leapt out at me from the bookstore shelf: Hick Poetics, in stark letterhead, promised unsung voices from corners of the US flown over and potentially glossed over. It turns out that this Jim Harrison was actually a highly prolific prose author as well, having written the collection of novellas Legends of the Fall, the film adaptation of which became an early vehicle for Brad Pitt's rise. He was apparently close with Jack Nicholson, who helped finance his writing efforts when he was hard up.
I've always appreciated when folk wisdom and stewardship meets the philosophy and phenomenology of existence in one idiosyncratic package. I've met several such thinkers in my time knocking around San Francisco and its surroundings, and it seems Harrison also fits the bill. There's a motif at play here: cycles and gyres spinning. Creation, birth and death are merely landmarks on the loop, and I think Harrison captures simultaneously how much bigger the world is than what we can conceive or control while also recognizing our roles as authors and creators of its existence by perceiving it. Heady stuff! And in such simple, precise language.
L'Envoi
By Jim Harrison 2015 (1937-2016)
All of my life I've held myself
at an undisclosed location.
Sometimes I have a roof over my head
but no floor, and sometimes a floor but no roof.
This is the song of a man who wrote songs
without music, dog songs, river songs,
bear songs, bird songs though they didn't
need my help, and many people songs.
The just-waking universe returned the favor
with spherical carols as if creation
hadn't stopped a minute, which it hadn't,
as if our songs helped it become itself.
We gave no voice to the bear but watched
our minds allow the bear to become a bear.
At a brief still point on the whirling earth
we saw both the stars and the ground we walked
upon, struggling to recognize each other at noon,
talked ourselves deaf and blind on the sharp
edge of disappearing for reasons we never
figured out. I was conceived near a dance hall
on a bend of a river, now sixty-seven years
downstream I'm singing a water song
not struggling against the ungentle current.
Hick Poetics
I didn't know much about this poet when I first selected him; I found him in an anthology which leapt out at me from the bookstore shelf: Hick Poetics, in stark letterhead, promised unsung voices from corners of the US flown over and potentially glossed over. It turns out that this Jim Harrison was actually a highly prolific prose author as well, having written the collection of novellas Legends of the Fall, the film adaptation of which became an early vehicle for Brad Pitt's rise. He was apparently close with Jack Nicholson, who helped finance his writing efforts when he was hard up.
I've always appreciated when folk wisdom and stewardship meets the philosophy and phenomenology of existence in one idiosyncratic package. I've met several such thinkers in my time knocking around San Francisco and its surroundings, and it seems Harrison also fits the bill. There's a motif at play here: cycles and gyres spinning. Creation, birth and death are merely landmarks on the loop, and I think Harrison captures simultaneously how much bigger the world is than what we can conceive or control while also recognizing our roles as authors and creators of its existence by perceiving it. Heady stuff! And in such simple, precise language.
L'Envoi
By Jim Harrison 2015 (1937-2016)
All of my life I've held myself
at an undisclosed location.
Sometimes I have a roof over my head
but no floor, and sometimes a floor but no roof.
This is the song of a man who wrote songs
without music, dog songs, river songs,
bear songs, bird songs though they didn't
need my help, and many people songs.
The just-waking universe returned the favor
with spherical carols as if creation
hadn't stopped a minute, which it hadn't,
as if our songs helped it become itself.
We gave no voice to the bear but watched
our minds allow the bear to become a bear.
At a brief still point on the whirling earth
we saw both the stars and the ground we walked
upon, struggling to recognize each other at noon,
talked ourselves deaf and blind on the sharp
edge of disappearing for reasons we never
figured out. I was conceived near a dance hall
on a bend of a river, now sixty-seven years
downstream I'm singing a water song
not struggling against the ungentle current.
Hick Poetics
24doctorofphysick
>22 DebiCates: Hmm. Maybe the conversation could be co-capped by a brief poem that captures musicality, or maybe a song lyric with poetic power, along with a question and a statement... When do you plan to post the topics? I can do some digging and cogitating about it.
25saskia17
>22 DebiCates: >24 doctorofphysick:
You might consider Bob Dylan's Nobel lecture, where he discusses songs vs. literature. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2016/dylan/lecture/
You might consider Bob Dylan's Nobel lecture, where he discusses songs vs. literature. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2016/dylan/lecture/
26DebiCates
>23 doctorofphysick: Nick, Nick. I'm so glad you are inviting us every Friday to share with you your journeys, the journey of this risky business of reading poetry.
This is one of those poem experiences where i cry at the first reading. I don't know why I cry, exactly, but I noticed at the end of reading this poem, I let out an audible sigh, then the feelings that make me cry made me cry. I suppose, it's a cry of relief.
Then, after composing myself a little, I eagerly went up to the top to read through again which I always do with a poem (weird but I rarely re-read novels; I suppose a poem is more akin to putting a song or an album on digital "repeat"). Then this had meaning that stabbed me in the heart:
The weeping, that weepy relief comes from connecting with someone in the world (now not in the world, in fact) who wrote down what it was like to live, in the way that speaks for me and in the way I could hear it. It is a door of profundity that I've been willfully standing outside of until a braver stranger sauntered up, turned the knob, went in, and I got a glimpse of luminescence of what I knew/did-not-know was there. It's that evolving/revolving creation that Harrison speaks of--human to human. Then I realize there is also the editor Abraham Hicks, Harrison's spouse that supported his efforts, a best friend that gave him an honest opinion, a mother or father who raised him, teachers, people he knew in places he lived...and it goes on. There is also that other singular person here: you (now we are almost a village) who found much in his poem, enough to sing its existence. It all overtakes me, like standing in the river for baptism.
I now have to laugh--I almost wrote that I didn't understand how people can live without poetry. I laugh because I realize that they don't live without. Almost every one loves music and from it they get that same sensation of being represented (their "philosophy and phenomenology of existence"). Music can meet the same longing, the same need.
This is one of those poem experiences where i cry at the first reading. I don't know why I cry, exactly, but I noticed at the end of reading this poem, I let out an audible sigh, then the feelings that make me cry made me cry. I suppose, it's a cry of relief.
Then, after composing myself a little, I eagerly went up to the top to read through again which I always do with a poem (weird but I rarely re-read novels; I suppose a poem is more akin to putting a song or an album on digital "repeat"). Then this had meaning that stabbed me in the heart:
L'Envoiupon which I had to weep a bit more.
By Jim Harrison 2015 (1937-2016)
The weeping, that weepy relief comes from connecting with someone in the world (now not in the world, in fact) who wrote down what it was like to live, in the way that speaks for me and in the way I could hear it. It is a door of profundity that I've been willfully standing outside of until a braver stranger sauntered up, turned the knob, went in, and I got a glimpse of luminescence of what I knew/did-not-know was there. It's that evolving/revolving creation that Harrison speaks of--human to human. Then I realize there is also the editor Abraham Hicks, Harrison's spouse that supported his efforts, a best friend that gave him an honest opinion, a mother or father who raised him, teachers, people he knew in places he lived...and it goes on. There is also that other singular person here: you (now we are almost a village) who found much in his poem, enough to sing its existence. It all overtakes me, like standing in the river for baptism.
I now have to laugh--I almost wrote that I didn't understand how people can live without poetry. I laugh because I realize that they don't live without. Almost every one loves music and from it they get that same sensation of being represented (their "philosophy and phenomenology of existence"). Music can meet the same longing, the same need.
27DebiCates
>24 doctorofphysick: Do dig and cogitate, yes please! I have four themes planned for April, beginning each Wednesday running for a week. The week of April 8 is "Stages of Life" and the week of April 15th is "Your Poetry Library" and any day in those 2 weeks could dovetail into include a topic of music and poetry. (I'm purposely staying loose with the themes and my ideas for them. I want to be able to respond to thoughts and insights in the messages that might come from members as April progresses.) You could either DM me what you come up with or write about it here in your space where I could link. Either would work but the second could awaken more people to your Friday posts which would be an apt poetry appreciation boost.
28DebiCates
>25 saskia17: I'm reading now, Nica. Oh my, what a great suggestion! Thank you, thank you.
29TonjaE
>23 doctorofphysick: "I was conceived near a dance hall
on a bend of a river, now sixty-seven years
downstream I'm singing a water song
not struggling against the ungentle current."
I want to file the last line of this beautiful piece of prose poetry somewhere to remember, and maybe one day I can explain why.
Thank you for sharing it.
on a bend of a river, now sixty-seven years
downstream I'm singing a water song
not struggling against the ungentle current."
I want to file the last line of this beautiful piece of prose poetry somewhere to remember, and maybe one day I can explain why.
Thank you for sharing it.
30TonjaE
>18 doctorofphysick: I don't need to listen to the music to know that this poem describes the kind of jazz that makes my gums bleed. Really, really good writing.
Thank you, and looking forward to reading more of your originals.
Thank you, and looking forward to reading more of your originals.
31doctorofphysick
>30 TonjaE: Thanks, Tonja! I'm combing the archives as we speak.
32doctorofphysick
>25 saskia17: >22 DebiCates: This is a really great idea - and his lecture had some very thought provoking bits. I like this passage from when he's describing Moby Dick:
"We see only the surface of things. We can interpret what lies below any way we see fit. Crewmen walk around on deck listening for mermaids, and sharks and vultures follow the ship. Reading skulls and faces like you read a book. Here’s a face. I’ll put it in front of you. Read it if you can."
There's always layers of meaning at work when it comes to Dylan: we're getting a reading of Melville, but he could also be commenting on the scrutiny he's received throughout his career regarding his true intentions and meaning in his work. He dares the reader to go on reading him, as a scavenger would a free meal; of course, like the rest of his work, it invites all sorts of interpretations.
I think Bob Dylan's work would make a great conversation starter for National Poetry Month - specifically his song "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall." There's a wealth of literature about this particular song to draw upon. And it stands on two feet both as a folk song and as a poem. We could invite the group to volunteer songs that they think stand up well as poetry, also.
I'm especially partial to the rock and roll reinterpretation he did on the Rolling Thunder Revue tour: https://youtu.be/iUD5snx-XOo?si=bLDYOhaCb0N2wBuo
"We see only the surface of things. We can interpret what lies below any way we see fit. Crewmen walk around on deck listening for mermaids, and sharks and vultures follow the ship. Reading skulls and faces like you read a book. Here’s a face. I’ll put it in front of you. Read it if you can."
There's always layers of meaning at work when it comes to Dylan: we're getting a reading of Melville, but he could also be commenting on the scrutiny he's received throughout his career regarding his true intentions and meaning in his work. He dares the reader to go on reading him, as a scavenger would a free meal; of course, like the rest of his work, it invites all sorts of interpretations.
I think Bob Dylan's work would make a great conversation starter for National Poetry Month - specifically his song "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall." There's a wealth of literature about this particular song to draw upon. And it stands on two feet both as a folk song and as a poem. We could invite the group to volunteer songs that they think stand up well as poetry, also.
I'm especially partial to the rock and roll reinterpretation he did on the Rolling Thunder Revue tour: https://youtu.be/iUD5snx-XOo?si=bLDYOhaCb0N2wBuo
33DebiCates
>32 doctorofphysick: I think Bob Dylan's work would make a great conversation starter for National Poetry Month - specifically his song "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall." There's a wealth of literature about this particular song to draw upon. And it stands on two feet both as a folk song and as a poem. We could invite the group to volunteer songs that they think stand up well as poetry, also.
Perfect. I'll get back with you when I have got its spot fixed and see if you'd like to contribute to that day's message.
Perfect. I'll get back with you when I have got its spot fixed and see if you'd like to contribute to that day's message.
34doctorofphysick
Hi folks, and happy National Poetry Month! I've got multiple irons in the fire today as I select yet another poem for this column which interrogates the self and the act of writing, prepare a general group Saturday post around a Frank O'Hara favorite of mine, and flesh out a title spreadsheet for my final project in Collection Development class (in my library grad program). It's the kind of chaos and clamor that I thrive on, and what better way to busy oneself than reading and trying to articulate the meanings of poems?
I would be surprised if we didn't all love Dylan Thomas. I've seen his name peppered around the forums here, and rightly so. It seemed appropriate to start the month off with someone celebrated. I first encountered his writing as a preteen when I found an old copy of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog on my father's lay bookshelf. I was the perfect age and temperament to appreciate his wry, schoolboy-adjacent humor; but what I remember striking me most was his acuity for describing people and their quirks. The accumulation of details colored in his Wales as a vivid tableau that felt simultaneously true to life, and implacably warped by memory, like an old photograph left out in the salt air. I didn't read his poetry until later.
I have a predilection for metacommentary about writing poetry, as previous posts have shown. One of my favorite metaphors about writing is found here: "I labour by singing light," during the "still night." Thomas' narrator composes in solitude, and is preoccupied with why and for whom he is composing, all points of identification for any poet. From a certain perspective, this could be read as a lament, but when I read it aloud I feel pride and an empathic connection to Thomas and to all who write (though "not a proud man apart," I hope). Scholars have noted that evidence suggests that the narrator is not in fact Thomas, but one of his many creations and avatars: he didn't write at night. Whatever the case may be, the narrator possesses that bent realism that I described earlier, and it scans as truth.
I mentioned reading this aloud because truly, that's the best way to experience this poem, and Thomas' work generally. The internal rhythmic structure including some rhyme and the repetitious elements are best experienced aurally. Happy Poetry Month, once again!
In my Craft or Sullen Art
by Dylan Thomas 1946 (1914-53)
In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.
Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Not for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.
The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas
I would be surprised if we didn't all love Dylan Thomas. I've seen his name peppered around the forums here, and rightly so. It seemed appropriate to start the month off with someone celebrated. I first encountered his writing as a preteen when I found an old copy of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog on my father's lay bookshelf. I was the perfect age and temperament to appreciate his wry, schoolboy-adjacent humor; but what I remember striking me most was his acuity for describing people and their quirks. The accumulation of details colored in his Wales as a vivid tableau that felt simultaneously true to life, and implacably warped by memory, like an old photograph left out in the salt air. I didn't read his poetry until later.
I have a predilection for metacommentary about writing poetry, as previous posts have shown. One of my favorite metaphors about writing is found here: "I labour by singing light," during the "still night." Thomas' narrator composes in solitude, and is preoccupied with why and for whom he is composing, all points of identification for any poet. From a certain perspective, this could be read as a lament, but when I read it aloud I feel pride and an empathic connection to Thomas and to all who write (though "not a proud man apart," I hope). Scholars have noted that evidence suggests that the narrator is not in fact Thomas, but one of his many creations and avatars: he didn't write at night. Whatever the case may be, the narrator possesses that bent realism that I described earlier, and it scans as truth.
I mentioned reading this aloud because truly, that's the best way to experience this poem, and Thomas' work generally. The internal rhythmic structure including some rhyme and the repetitious elements are best experienced aurally. Happy Poetry Month, once again!
In my Craft or Sullen Art
by Dylan Thomas 1946 (1914-53)
In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.
Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Not for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.
The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas
35DebiCates
>34 doctorofphysick: Quite a good edition today, Nick. They all have been. Honestly.
I can't believe that I read Dylan Thomas for the first time just a few months ago, in the Goodreads' twin The Poetry Collective. His works have such an energy to them, they beg, beg to be read aloud.
In fact, I listened to a reading (clocking in at 1 1/2 hours) of his poem-play (?) Under Milk Wood which was a bundle of energy and absolutely set me on fire with that bent realism that...scans as truth.
No classification-mash, it was pure poetry in "The force that through the green fuse drives the flower." Have you read that one? Written when he was just 18 with all the passion and unruly energy of an 18 year old. An 18 year old genius.
I'm so glad you've provided here another Thomas poem...only my third. (Life is short. And at 66 growing shorter some how.) I love when poets write about poetry in a poem. Very meta, very informative.
But I think we should all always remember, too, to never trust a poet to tell you facts, only the truth.
I can't believe that I read Dylan Thomas for the first time just a few months ago, in the Goodreads' twin The Poetry Collective. His works have such an energy to them, they beg, beg to be read aloud.
In fact, I listened to a reading (clocking in at 1 1/2 hours) of his poem-play (?) Under Milk Wood which was a bundle of energy and absolutely set me on fire with that bent realism that...scans as truth.
No classification-mash, it was pure poetry in "The force that through the green fuse drives the flower." Have you read that one? Written when he was just 18 with all the passion and unruly energy of an 18 year old. An 18 year old genius.
I'm so glad you've provided here another Thomas poem...only my third. (Life is short. And at 66 growing shorter some how.) I love when poets write about poetry in a poem. Very meta, very informative.
But I think we should all always remember, too, to never trust a poet to tell you facts, only the truth.
36doctorofphysick
>35 DebiCates: I'll definitely listen to that poem/play soon! Thanks.
37doctorofphysick
I've been a denizen of Library World for almost 10 years now; it all started when a friend of a friend suggested I volunteer at my local public library during a break from school, to see what I thought of the milieu. She was convinced that I had the temperament of a librarian, and she was right. I was given the designation "Tech Assistant" at the downtown branch of the Berkeley Public Library, helping patrons with computing and printing 20 hours a week, and I stayed on for 2 years.
The downtown computer lab was a wild place pre-pandemic. It functioned as a day shelter for the notoriously large Berkeley homeless population, but it was popular with all walks of life in town. Patrons were highly diverse, ethnically, socioeconomically, and in terms of how they used the space. I found it deeply stimulating: not only did I decide to make a career in libraries, I also wrote a book length manuscript of poetry about my experiences helping out in the computer lab.
"Bibliophenia: Poems to a Public Library" remains unpublished; I finished revisions just before I returned to school and got my first paid library job. Life came first, as is often the lament with these things. It has several long form prose poems that are over 10 pages long, and many short vignettes that describe singular patron interactions. I like to share this one because it functions as a mission statement as well as a snapshot of particularly inspiring jobs I ran over many weeks. It's also not prohibitively long.
Charter a Boat
by Nick Boykin 2018 (1989-)
Inside the soap bubble instant of a computer lab calm
Is a piano roll pricked with personal thoughts turning
The iridescent surface keeps its tension for all or none of an eternity
But always it must be riven by my promised duty: to rise and to do
The dance steps are painted on the floor
The feet and intellect move according to predestined bearings
My repetition is like the application of endless coats of lacquer
And I take pride in the minute improvements I make
The one-bedroom apartment shrinks around Simin
Suburban Tehran looks better now by comparison, she says
The electric gate opening on the big house, the excess of smelling flowers on the landing
Forget about the fundamentalists and their marauding like a blanket over everything
She whisks me away like I’ve had a towline attached
She is a woman with a lot of torque: our wake is colossal
Accustomed to whispers, Simin speaks complexity through fog soup
I comb the web for literary contests in the stance of a low ranked wrestler
Simin and I are both poets
I recognize in her the ego that is required to devote so much of one’s life to this
Her oeuvre is vast, and she has arduously translated all of it from the Farsi
But she has centered her onus on this book like a failed adventurer turning to alchemy
Watching the gardener drag the revolving sprinkler on the big lawn
Picking fruit while Nader courted her in orchards under the gaze of Mount Damavand
Composing verses in the National Library: then, Simin stretched the world like canvas
Her early work reflects the tranquil flux of a life before fear, like Osip Mandelstam
But spirited westward, Simin fell down a rabbit hole lined with depreciating currency
Her flight was itself a fall, and a scrabbling for survival has distilled in her a great hope
As we cruise on choppy water, she punches me with her ambitions like a pin cushion
The poems must bring prize monies or she’ll lose the one bedroom soon enough
Suddenly I must decide to cut the line with a serrated knife
Another patron yelps for service, and my heading spins wildly before steadying out
He wears an odd knit beanie, often seen in the upper Midwest, with a football sigil
His neck appears to be dislocated, as though he has had a great fall in a cartoon reality
In a cavalcade of exquisite phrases bounded by conjunctions in the King’s English
Ian beats around the bush like a weary airplane, waiting for permission to land
A mastery of language can be all the sword and shield one needs in life
Especially if one is in the business of propagating and disseminating speech
Like a tapestry woven for the glory of a totalitarian regime, his query materializes
He wants a lieutenant to aid him in a two-pronged spamming operation
A message has burrowed in the very essence of his being, and it demands to be heard
It also demands complete and perfect coverage: all must be exposed and inoculated
Artillery fire across email servers, shrapnel of typed paper slips spattered across the city
The mania for mass communication is boiling Ian’s brain like a copper kettle
His vision is at once soberly resolute and yet constantly foaming into frenzy
He has the good sense to know he cannot raise this achievement without a toady
I try not to read the sentences on the document that are repeated twelve times per page
I demystify for Ian the concept of carbon copy on Yahoo, but I try not to look too close
It is I who showed the phantom how to format his terroristic weapon, pick the font size
And it was not until I sat down in a twilight bus canvassed with his slogan, that I knew
Anchors are drawn up and plopped down with a reliable fluency on any given day
The rigging is loosened and retied, as rubber soles squeak across the busy deck
A disabled woman needs to be guided to the Shriners Hospital website every time
But once there, ‘it’s all good,’ the current carries her sure into the Gulf Stream
The lab printers, in their infinite wisdom and unknowability, mark us all with vexation
But like a pinball blessed by the winged sandals of Hermes, I rush all over to help
The maneuvers to make the machines work are like sutras, indispensable ritual chants
If my tongue doesn’t speak them, this essential knowledge remains fatally obscure
My mind is dulled by rote tasks and repetition, my canned speech tinnily resounding
But my heart is buoyed and surged by invention, by the unseen and the uncalled for
The traipsing through the same old dry forest, only to step unawares into a faerie revels
There are the beige days of self-same drudgery, then abruptly a burst of color like a shot
Charter a boat for you, for yours; I’ll swear under my breath you’ll be satisfied
Inside the working week with all its alternating bedlam and grace, let your hair down
Even lives seized by calamity must close their eyes on the sunny deck in the salt breeze
I sing from the bow my hawking spiel: “If only for a moment, I will guide the till.”
The downtown computer lab was a wild place pre-pandemic. It functioned as a day shelter for the notoriously large Berkeley homeless population, but it was popular with all walks of life in town. Patrons were highly diverse, ethnically, socioeconomically, and in terms of how they used the space. I found it deeply stimulating: not only did I decide to make a career in libraries, I also wrote a book length manuscript of poetry about my experiences helping out in the computer lab.
"Bibliophenia: Poems to a Public Library" remains unpublished; I finished revisions just before I returned to school and got my first paid library job. Life came first, as is often the lament with these things. It has several long form prose poems that are over 10 pages long, and many short vignettes that describe singular patron interactions. I like to share this one because it functions as a mission statement as well as a snapshot of particularly inspiring jobs I ran over many weeks. It's also not prohibitively long.
Charter a Boat
by Nick Boykin 2018 (1989-)
Inside the soap bubble instant of a computer lab calm
Is a piano roll pricked with personal thoughts turning
The iridescent surface keeps its tension for all or none of an eternity
But always it must be riven by my promised duty: to rise and to do
The dance steps are painted on the floor
The feet and intellect move according to predestined bearings
My repetition is like the application of endless coats of lacquer
And I take pride in the minute improvements I make
The one-bedroom apartment shrinks around Simin
Suburban Tehran looks better now by comparison, she says
The electric gate opening on the big house, the excess of smelling flowers on the landing
Forget about the fundamentalists and their marauding like a blanket over everything
She whisks me away like I’ve had a towline attached
She is a woman with a lot of torque: our wake is colossal
Accustomed to whispers, Simin speaks complexity through fog soup
I comb the web for literary contests in the stance of a low ranked wrestler
Simin and I are both poets
I recognize in her the ego that is required to devote so much of one’s life to this
Her oeuvre is vast, and she has arduously translated all of it from the Farsi
But she has centered her onus on this book like a failed adventurer turning to alchemy
Watching the gardener drag the revolving sprinkler on the big lawn
Picking fruit while Nader courted her in orchards under the gaze of Mount Damavand
Composing verses in the National Library: then, Simin stretched the world like canvas
Her early work reflects the tranquil flux of a life before fear, like Osip Mandelstam
But spirited westward, Simin fell down a rabbit hole lined with depreciating currency
Her flight was itself a fall, and a scrabbling for survival has distilled in her a great hope
As we cruise on choppy water, she punches me with her ambitions like a pin cushion
The poems must bring prize monies or she’ll lose the one bedroom soon enough
Suddenly I must decide to cut the line with a serrated knife
Another patron yelps for service, and my heading spins wildly before steadying out
He wears an odd knit beanie, often seen in the upper Midwest, with a football sigil
His neck appears to be dislocated, as though he has had a great fall in a cartoon reality
In a cavalcade of exquisite phrases bounded by conjunctions in the King’s English
Ian beats around the bush like a weary airplane, waiting for permission to land
A mastery of language can be all the sword and shield one needs in life
Especially if one is in the business of propagating and disseminating speech
Like a tapestry woven for the glory of a totalitarian regime, his query materializes
He wants a lieutenant to aid him in a two-pronged spamming operation
A message has burrowed in the very essence of his being, and it demands to be heard
It also demands complete and perfect coverage: all must be exposed and inoculated
Artillery fire across email servers, shrapnel of typed paper slips spattered across the city
The mania for mass communication is boiling Ian’s brain like a copper kettle
His vision is at once soberly resolute and yet constantly foaming into frenzy
He has the good sense to know he cannot raise this achievement without a toady
I try not to read the sentences on the document that are repeated twelve times per page
I demystify for Ian the concept of carbon copy on Yahoo, but I try not to look too close
It is I who showed the phantom how to format his terroristic weapon, pick the font size
And it was not until I sat down in a twilight bus canvassed with his slogan, that I knew
Anchors are drawn up and plopped down with a reliable fluency on any given day
The rigging is loosened and retied, as rubber soles squeak across the busy deck
A disabled woman needs to be guided to the Shriners Hospital website every time
But once there, ‘it’s all good,’ the current carries her sure into the Gulf Stream
The lab printers, in their infinite wisdom and unknowability, mark us all with vexation
But like a pinball blessed by the winged sandals of Hermes, I rush all over to help
The maneuvers to make the machines work are like sutras, indispensable ritual chants
If my tongue doesn’t speak them, this essential knowledge remains fatally obscure
My mind is dulled by rote tasks and repetition, my canned speech tinnily resounding
But my heart is buoyed and surged by invention, by the unseen and the uncalled for
The traipsing through the same old dry forest, only to step unawares into a faerie revels
There are the beige days of self-same drudgery, then abruptly a burst of color like a shot
Charter a boat for you, for yours; I’ll swear under my breath you’ll be satisfied
Inside the working week with all its alternating bedlam and grace, let your hair down
Even lives seized by calamity must close their eyes on the sunny deck in the salt breeze
I sing from the bow my hawking spiel: “If only for a moment, I will guide the till.”
38DebiCates
>37 doctorofphysick: Nick, you are one fascinating dude.
You are akin to the Ancient Mariner amongst the wedding guests that are LT. But you are not old, you are not cursed, you are not bitter. You are, though, an astute storyteller who navigates the 21st century choppy waters with calming kindness, an old soul wowing me with stunning metaphors from across the oceans of Time. I'll make one of my own, much more humble: reading your poem was like the wedding candy of sugar-coated almonds I remember eating as a teen in the Middle East. A treat.
Next I want to go back through to google some things, like Osip Mandelstam. I want to savor all the flavors that you offered for our enjoyment.
Yesterday I just became aware of the ancient Persian poet Ferdowsi and his epic poem Shahnameh. (Simin probably would have known it well!) Could an analogy be made of "Shahnameh" and "Bibliophenia: Poems to a Public Library" I wonder. In my mind it is already happening. We need a Ferdowsi. Our minds, our libraries, under attack by the barbarians, need a Boykin.
Never doubt that across the "infinite wisdom and unknowability" that is the Internet, there is a willing reader on the other end. Thank you for your astounding message in a bottle.
You are akin to the Ancient Mariner amongst the wedding guests that are LT. But you are not old, you are not cursed, you are not bitter. You are, though, an astute storyteller who navigates the 21st century choppy waters with calming kindness, an old soul wowing me with stunning metaphors from across the oceans of Time. I'll make one of my own, much more humble: reading your poem was like the wedding candy of sugar-coated almonds I remember eating as a teen in the Middle East. A treat.
Next I want to go back through to google some things, like Osip Mandelstam. I want to savor all the flavors that you offered for our enjoyment.
Yesterday I just became aware of the ancient Persian poet Ferdowsi and his epic poem Shahnameh. (Simin probably would have known it well!) Could an analogy be made of "Shahnameh" and "Bibliophenia: Poems to a Public Library" I wonder. In my mind it is already happening. We need a Ferdowsi. Our minds, our libraries, under attack by the barbarians, need a Boykin.
Never doubt that across the "infinite wisdom and unknowability" that is the Internet, there is a willing reader on the other end. Thank you for your astounding message in a bottle.
39doctorofphysick
>38 DebiCates: Thanks so much Debi. It's an honor to be analogized with Coleridge's original salty dog; ditto the legendary Persian poet, who I was not familiar with but clearly is the authority on poetic epics. I have a tendency to impose three-act structure onto the poems that I want to use to make a statement, and they can ramble on for a very long time. There are traces of that impulse here. I'm glad you found it sweet.
Osip Mandelstam was another Soviet poet who, like Mayakovsky, was persecuted under Stalin. I came across a copy of his first book Stone without any context about his life, and was floored by it. It was full of youth and enthusiasm, written before the revolution and before the purges, which is why I compared it to "Simin's" work (names were changed, though honestly I now remember her only as Simin. I took the name from the female lead character in Asghar Farhadi's 'A Separation' (2011)).
I listened to Under Milk Wood while doing a massive weeding/shifting project at the library where I work. I'll need to read the transcription sometime, since the density is so high, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. The passage of time and the diversity of tones in the village were really palpable; I especially enjoyed the sea captain's storyline, and the elderly poet whose verses set the stage for each segment of the day. I was really surprised by the songs, which were great. I was not surprised by the bawdiness and humor - love Dylan Thomas. I also love Matthew Rhys - he was perfect, which was not a surprise. Nice to hear him speaking in his native accent for once.
Osip Mandelstam was another Soviet poet who, like Mayakovsky, was persecuted under Stalin. I came across a copy of his first book Stone without any context about his life, and was floored by it. It was full of youth and enthusiasm, written before the revolution and before the purges, which is why I compared it to "Simin's" work (names were changed, though honestly I now remember her only as Simin. I took the name from the female lead character in Asghar Farhadi's 'A Separation' (2011)).
I listened to Under Milk Wood while doing a massive weeding/shifting project at the library where I work. I'll need to read the transcription sometime, since the density is so high, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. The passage of time and the diversity of tones in the village were really palpable; I especially enjoyed the sea captain's storyline, and the elderly poet whose verses set the stage for each segment of the day. I was really surprised by the songs, which were great. I was not surprised by the bawdiness and humor - love Dylan Thomas. I also love Matthew Rhys - he was perfect, which was not a surprise. Nice to hear him speaking in his native accent for once.
40hamlet61
It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?
Are you the one of three?
Observers are always fortunate in that they can keep a distance and comment. But with the responsibility of making smoething original out of that.
Just please, no albatrosses! :-)
Thank you for sharing that poem.
--Matt
And he stoppeth one of three.
'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?
Are you the one of three?
Observers are always fortunate in that they can keep a distance and comment. But with the responsibility of making smoething original out of that.
Just please, no albatrosses! :-)
Thank you for sharing that poem.
--Matt
41DebiCates
>39 doctorofphysick: I hope I conveyed how especially fine your poem is. I got stuck in some sort of metaphor matrix and might have come off not serious enough, worse, as superficial. That was not how I felt. I re-read it again just now and all over again love your narrative technique. I enjoyed the journey very much, all the literary references, all the careful observation of people--and a library! Everything to love. If it's "rambling," it's a wonderful rambling. If it's rambling then don't forget Thomas rambles, too.
Now I'm off searching for two films! A Separation and the 2014 Under Milk Wood with Matthew Rhys which I was unaware even existed. The Under Milk Wood I listened to was the 1954 BBC radio drama with the other Welshman Richard Burton as "First Voice" plus a whole bunch of other voice actors for the villagers of Llareggub ;) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jN3scLX2WY I think there was a subsequent film made with Burton as well.
P.S. Those wedding candy-covered almonds i compared your poem to? They are special events. They are attractive. They are sweet. But crunchy, too. They hold inside a meaty almond. They are filling. They are taken home by the guests. As metaphor for your poem, it works.
Now I'm off searching for two films! A Separation and the 2014 Under Milk Wood with Matthew Rhys which I was unaware even existed. The Under Milk Wood I listened to was the 1954 BBC radio drama with the other Welshman Richard Burton as "First Voice" plus a whole bunch of other voice actors for the villagers of Llareggub ;) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jN3scLX2WY I think there was a subsequent film made with Burton as well.
P.S. Those wedding candy-covered almonds i compared your poem to? They are special events. They are attractive. They are sweet. But crunchy, too. They hold inside a meaty almond. They are filling. They are taken home by the guests. As metaphor for your poem, it works.
42doctorofphysick
>40 hamlet61: Thanks Matt! I was certainly among the wedding guests when I wrote these poems, encountering multiple mariners per shift at the library. It was a rich time creatively for me.
43doctorofphysick
>41 DebiCates: No prob, Debi! I have a tendency to self-efface about my own style; but I'm happy to be a ramblin' man. No need to apologize for strolling the halls of metaphor. I'm glad to have inspired it. I loved your wedding almond metaphor.
The 2014 version of the play was the first that popped up; I thought the sound design was really great. But Richard Burton as First Voice - I might need to re-delve.
The 2014 version of the play was the first that popped up; I thought the sound design was really great. But Richard Burton as First Voice - I might need to re-delve.
44doctorofphysick
I wasn't sure I'd post this one because it's a bit unwieldy. George Oppen is a bit obscure among the American Modernists because he gave up writing poetry for some 25 years for the sake of political activism and organizing (those politics may have contributed to keeping him more obscure). By the time he picked back up again, the literary establishment was quite different from the one of his youth in the 1930s, but that sort of man-out-time quality has a tendency to make his insights and wisdom especially piercing.
Oppen was highly sensitive to the currents of class and culture in the US, and particularly NYC where he lived. His work usually has a polemical quality, having something to say about the frictions and small joys of people living together in close proximity. Of Being Numerous, his poetry book of 40 numbered serial parts, exemplifies this tendency best. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1969. I've excerpted the first 9 here, I thought it would make a good stopping point. You can read the whole thing here, if you're feeling adventurous: https://writing.upenn.edu/~taransky/of_being_numerous_1968_oppen.pdf
from Of Being Numerous
by George Oppen 1968 (1908-84)
1
There are things
We live among ‘and to see them
Is to know ourselves’.
Occurrence, a part
Of an infinite series,
The sad marvels;
Of this was told
A tale of our wickedness.
It is not our wickedness.
“You remember that old town we went to, and we sat in the
ruined window, and we tried to imagine that we belonged to
those times—It is dead and it is not dead, and you cannot
imagine either its life or its death; the earth speaks and the sala-
mander speaks, the Spring comes and only obscures it—’
2
So spoke of the existence of things,
An unmanageable pantheon
Absolute, but they say
Arid.
A city of the corporations
Glassed
In Dreams
And images—
And the pure joy
Of the mineral fact
Tho it is impenetrable
As the world, if it is matter,
Is impenetrable.
3
The emotions are engaged
Entering the city
As entering any city.
We are not coeval
With a locality
But we imagine others are,
We encounter them. Actually
A populace flows
Thru the city
This is a language, therefore, of New York
4
For the people of that flow
Are new, the old
New to age as the young
To youth
And to their dwelling
For which the tarred roofs
And the stoops and doors—
A world of stoops—
Are petty alibi with satirical wit
Will not serve.
5
The great stone
Above the river
In the pylon of the bridge
‘1875’
Frozen in the moonlight
In the frozen air over the footpath, consciousness
Which has nothing to gain, which awaits nothing,
Which loves itself
6
We are pressed, pressed on each other,
We will be told at once
Of anything that happens
And the discovery of facts bursts
In a paroxysm of emotion
Now as always. Crusoe
We say was
‘Rescued’.
So we have chosen.
7
Obsessed, bewildered
By the shipwreck
Of the singular
We have chosen the meaning
Of being numerous.
8
Amor fati
The love of fate
For which the city alone
Is audience
Perhaps blasphemous.
Slowly over islands, destinies
Moving steadily pass
And change
In the thin sky
Over islands
Among days
Having only the force
Of days
Most simple
Most difficult
9
‘Whether, as the intensity of seeing increases, one’s distance
from Them, the people, does not also increase’
I know, of course I know, I can enter no other place
Yet I am one of those who from nothing but a man’s way of
thought and one of his dialects and what has happened
to me
Have made poetry
To dream of that beach
For the sake of an instant in the eyes,
The absolute singular
The unearthly bonds
Of the singular
Which is the bright light of shipwreck. {…}
Of Being Numerous
Oppen was highly sensitive to the currents of class and culture in the US, and particularly NYC where he lived. His work usually has a polemical quality, having something to say about the frictions and small joys of people living together in close proximity. Of Being Numerous, his poetry book of 40 numbered serial parts, exemplifies this tendency best. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1969. I've excerpted the first 9 here, I thought it would make a good stopping point. You can read the whole thing here, if you're feeling adventurous: https://writing.upenn.edu/~taransky/of_being_numerous_1968_oppen.pdf
from Of Being Numerous
by George Oppen 1968 (1908-84)
1
There are things
We live among ‘and to see them
Is to know ourselves’.
Occurrence, a part
Of an infinite series,
The sad marvels;
Of this was told
A tale of our wickedness.
It is not our wickedness.
“You remember that old town we went to, and we sat in the
ruined window, and we tried to imagine that we belonged to
those times—It is dead and it is not dead, and you cannot
imagine either its life or its death; the earth speaks and the sala-
mander speaks, the Spring comes and only obscures it—’
2
So spoke of the existence of things,
An unmanageable pantheon
Absolute, but they say
Arid.
A city of the corporations
Glassed
In Dreams
And images—
And the pure joy
Of the mineral fact
Tho it is impenetrable
As the world, if it is matter,
Is impenetrable.
3
The emotions are engaged
Entering the city
As entering any city.
We are not coeval
With a locality
But we imagine others are,
We encounter them. Actually
A populace flows
Thru the city
This is a language, therefore, of New York
4
For the people of that flow
Are new, the old
New to age as the young
To youth
And to their dwelling
For which the tarred roofs
And the stoops and doors—
A world of stoops—
Are petty alibi with satirical wit
Will not serve.
5
The great stone
Above the river
In the pylon of the bridge
‘1875’
Frozen in the moonlight
In the frozen air over the footpath, consciousness
Which has nothing to gain, which awaits nothing,
Which loves itself
6
We are pressed, pressed on each other,
We will be told at once
Of anything that happens
And the discovery of facts bursts
In a paroxysm of emotion
Now as always. Crusoe
We say was
‘Rescued’.
So we have chosen.
7
Obsessed, bewildered
By the shipwreck
Of the singular
We have chosen the meaning
Of being numerous.
8
Amor fati
The love of fate
For which the city alone
Is audience
Perhaps blasphemous.
Slowly over islands, destinies
Moving steadily pass
And change
In the thin sky
Over islands
Among days
Having only the force
Of days
Most simple
Most difficult
9
‘Whether, as the intensity of seeing increases, one’s distance
from Them, the people, does not also increase’
I know, of course I know, I can enter no other place
Yet I am one of those who from nothing but a man’s way of
thought and one of his dialects and what has happened
to me
Have made poetry
To dream of that beach
For the sake of an instant in the eyes,
The absolute singular
The unearthly bonds
Of the singular
Which is the bright light of shipwreck. {…}
Of Being Numerous
45DebiCates
>44 doctorofphysick: Nick, I'm so glad for another edition of Constantly Risking! I appreciate the context you give these posts, both the personal and the historic. You don't just whip them out, do you? I can see you give them thought.
Along the same line, I'm going to come back during the week to give it my undivided attention, which at the moment is a tad fragmented. Nothing wrong, just a plate full of poetry and plans.
Along the same line, I'm going to come back during the week to give it my undivided attention, which at the moment is a tad fragmented. Nothing wrong, just a plate full of poetry and plans.
46DebiCates
>44 doctorofphysick: Oh no, I didn't come back and here it is, it's been more than a week. It slipped my mind, Nick. I gave my retirement notice at work at the first of April and they are finally starting to pay attention and ask questions about what all I do. It's exhausting.
47DebiCates
>44 doctorofphysick: Oh.
There is so much in this poem, or the first 9 parts I should say.
I feel so much of what he observes, in spite of not living in NYC in the 60s. Perhaps because all the world has gotten more populated, more diverse, more objectified. It's as if we can only take in so much, but we are still striving to take it all in, inside ourselves as we are wont to do as humans.
And for all our taking it, all that being numerous, being of the numerous, it still feels too short, too superficial, and we think maybe there was another time it was not this way. But it's always been this way. We don't even know, really, if it is beautiful though we say it is, because we don't know any differently. We have "only the force/Of days."
I can see why you became especially interested in this poet. I'm saving that message to my LT favorites so I can come back again and experience it again, following the link for more. It's a treasure trove of thoughts we think but don't let ourselves think on too long.
There is so much in this poem, or the first 9 parts I should say.
I feel so much of what he observes, in spite of not living in NYC in the 60s. Perhaps because all the world has gotten more populated, more diverse, more objectified. It's as if we can only take in so much, but we are still striving to take it all in, inside ourselves as we are wont to do as humans.
And for all our taking it, all that being numerous, being of the numerous, it still feels too short, too superficial, and we think maybe there was another time it was not this way. But it's always been this way. We don't even know, really, if it is beautiful though we say it is, because we don't know any differently. We have "only the force/Of days."
I can see why you became especially interested in this poet. I'm saving that message to my LT favorites so I can come back again and experience it again, following the link for more. It's a treasure trove of thoughts we think but don't let ourselves think on too long.
48doctorofphysick
>46 DebiCates: Hi Debi - so sorry to hear about that. I hope you sway the brass! You are not alone in distraction; I actually forgot about posting yesterday because I'm embroiled in end of semester projects.
One of those, for my Collection Development class, had a wrinkle of synchronicity to it: all semester I've been compiling a spreadsheet of books to purchase for an academic library collection on Deaf Studies and ASL Interpreting. I interned at a community college library this academic year with a large deaf/hard of hearing population, and became interested in their unique programs. Anyway, one of the books I selected was a textbook on ASL Interpreting co-written by one Deborah Cates. Could you be the author?
It isn't on LibraryThing: https://www.routledge.com/Introducing-ASL-English-Educational-Interpreting/Fitzm...
One of those, for my Collection Development class, had a wrinkle of synchronicity to it: all semester I've been compiling a spreadsheet of books to purchase for an academic library collection on Deaf Studies and ASL Interpreting. I interned at a community college library this academic year with a large deaf/hard of hearing population, and became interested in their unique programs. Anyway, one of the books I selected was a textbook on ASL Interpreting co-written by one Deborah Cates. Could you be the author?
It isn't on LibraryThing: https://www.routledge.com/Introducing-ASL-English-Educational-Interpreting/Fitzm...
49DebiCates
>48 doctorofphysick: Hey Nick! I hope things settle down for you. I didn't mention it, but I was disappointed there was no Constantly Risking Absurdity this week. i would have nudged, but then there was that not small problem of my own apology needed.
I hope the brass get off their ass, for their sakes. I've worked 50 years, 14+ years at this company. I'm ready for retirement. They've tried bribery to get me to hang on beyond July 3rd but this week of mulling it over brought on too much dread. So I'll say no thank you.
One of the things I have not done in my life is write a book on ASL. I once learned the alphabet as a kid, which is hardly worth mentioning. Rock on to my name twin, though.
I hope the brass get off their ass, for their sakes. I've worked 50 years, 14+ years at this company. I'm ready for retirement. They've tried bribery to get me to hang on beyond July 3rd but this week of mulling it over brought on too much dread. So I'll say no thank you.
One of the things I have not done in my life is write a book on ASL. I once learned the alphabet as a kid, which is hardly worth mentioning. Rock on to my name twin, though.
50DebiCates
>39 doctorofphysick: I just came across this title looking at NY Times list of books you should read to "be cultured."
Hope Against Hope (1970) by Nadezhda Mandelstam
Here's what the recommender wrote:
“As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more interested in nonfiction and less interested in fiction. The world is going through such a terrifying transition. Nonfiction often seems more relevant. Nadezhda Mandelstam was the widow of the great Soviet poet Osip Mandelstam, who made a silly little slip at a dinner party and was arrested and ultimately killed by the Stalinists. She memorized all of his poems, and then she walked around Russia surreptitiously staying with friends for 20 years until she could come back to Moscow and get them down on paper. Had she not done that, the work of one of the greatest poets of all time would’ve been lost. This memoir is the most precise, accurate and horrific description of what it’s like to live in a dictatorship. It also poses the question, ‘In dictatorial times, what can we do?’”
Hope Against Hope (1970) by Nadezhda Mandelstam
Here's what the recommender wrote:
“As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more interested in nonfiction and less interested in fiction. The world is going through such a terrifying transition. Nonfiction often seems more relevant. Nadezhda Mandelstam was the widow of the great Soviet poet Osip Mandelstam, who made a silly little slip at a dinner party and was arrested and ultimately killed by the Stalinists. She memorized all of his poems, and then she walked around Russia surreptitiously staying with friends for 20 years until she could come back to Moscow and get them down on paper. Had she not done that, the work of one of the greatest poets of all time would’ve been lost. This memoir is the most precise, accurate and horrific description of what it’s like to live in a dictatorship. It also poses the question, ‘In dictatorial times, what can we do?’”
51doctorofphysick
>50 DebiCates: Oh yes, I have my copy, though at the time I didn't make it through. It's heavy in the heart. Maybe this is the universe telling me to give it another go. Thanks Debi!
Also, I plan to post next week after I finish the last of the semester's assignments. I just might select some Mandelstam.
Also, I plan to post next week after I finish the last of the semester's assignments. I just might select some Mandelstam.
